THE MAN FROM MONTEREY

US, 1933, 59 minutes, Black and white.
John Wayne, Ruth Hall, Luis Alberni, Donald Wood, Francis Ford.
Directed by Mack V. Wright.

All the man from Madre up the creek Monterey is one of the very many brief, B-budget westerns that john made during the first half of the 1930s. Its plot is a cut above some of the others, but not the acting. John Wayne was twenty six at the time and still working on his craft, with a long way to go. Stagecoach was still six years in the future.
The setting is 1848 in the California Spanish lands. The American government is asking all Spanish Land grants from the king of Spain to be registered and become part of America. Otherwise, the lambs will be open to land grabs. The user group of America knows we get to take possession of the land of the guns of as family. But, there also a rival Spanish who want the land. That deceiving the head of the family into thinking that he does not have to register. And, the grand D E’s using his son to marry the daughter of the land owner to consolidate the claim.
The American government commissions john Holmes, one, to approach the landowners to persuade them to register. In counts he encounters Don Luis, the week’s son of the plot and landowner, who is in love with the daughter of the hotel keeper, a fiery young woman. He also encounters a wandering Spaniard, a fortune-teller and singer, who’s can tie he has broken. One intervenes, takes the fortune-teller along as a guide, immediately has to rescue Dolores Gonzalez from a setup by Don Luis to become a hero. When captured by a group of America knows, he lets them off and they help him.
Things come to a head when Don Luis is about to marry Dolores. Disguised as a Spaniard, with the Americano and the fortune-teller disguised as a woman, interrupt the ceremony, Anita marrying Nikki Luis by deception, freeing the landowner, affronting the plotters and all ends happily ever after.
Luis Alberni is quite humorous as the fortune-teller especially when purporting to be a woman. And the horse is called duke, the nickname john Wayne was to be given.
Interesting in the career of john Wayne as well as the B-budget westerns of the 1930s.